|
Korean Job Discussion Forums
"The Internet's Meeting Place for ESL/EFL Teachers from Around the World!"
|
| View previous topic :: View next topic |
| Any change in your opinion over the past year or two? |
| No change, still opposed |
|
37% |
[ 6 ] |
| No change, still in favour |
|
25% |
[ 4 ] |
| No change, still neutral / undecided |
|
6% |
[ 1 ] |
| More in favour now than a year or two before |
|
25% |
[ 4 ] |
| Less in favour now than a year or two before |
|
6% |
[ 1 ] |
|
| Total Votes : 16 |
|
| Author |
Message |
Bulsajo
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
|
 Posted: Sun May 21, 2006 9:37 pm Post subject: |
 |
|
| Quote: |
French are rudest, most boring people on earth: British poll
Sat May 20, 3:00 AM ET
LONDON (AFP) - The French have been voted the world's most unfriendly nation by a landslide in a new British poll published. They were also voted the most boring and most ungenerous.
A decisive 46 percent of the 6,000 people surveyed by travellers' website Where Are You Now (WAYN) said the French were the most unfriendly nation people on the planet, British newspapers reported.
The Germans have no to reason to celebrate the damning verdict. They came second on all three counts.
WAYN's French founder, Jerome Touze, told the papers he had been stunned by the thumping condemnation of his compatriots and sought to blame it on Gallic love-struck sulking.
"I had no idea that the French would emerge as such an unfriendly country," he said.
"I think our romantic 'moodiness' is misunderstood and I will be sure to pass on the message to my family and friends back in France to be a bit more cheerful to tourists in the future."
Italy was voted the world's most cultured nation with the best cuisine, while the United States was named the most unstylish with the worst food.
The British did not feature in the top 10 of any of the categories.
"The British fit in nowhere -- good or bad. It appears that we are so completely average that the voters did not include us in any category," the tabloid Daily Express commented.
"And to our shame, four percent of respondents -- all British of course -- said they would only talk to other Britons when they are abroad."
This unwillingness to talk to the locals appears to go hand in hand with respondents' perceptions of foreigners.
While most said Spain was the foreign country where they would most like to live, they said the Spaniards were nearly as unfriendly and ungenerous as the French.
To add insult to injury, British newspaper The Daily Telegraph put the boot in on Saturday by saying in an editorial that the French stank.
"The French may like to think that Chanel No 5 is their scent but we all know that garlic and stale Gitanes are much more representative." |
American food worse than British?!? Mon dieu, c'est incroyable! |
|
| Back to top |
|
 |
mithridates
Joined: 03 Mar 2003
Location: President's office, Korean Space Agency
|
| Posted: Mon May 22, 2006 7:27 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Woland wrote: |
| mithridates wrote: |
This page on Wikipedia is great. It shows each of the areas that Turkey, Croatia and Macedonia need to work on to get in. I love how everything's presented so straightforwardly there letting me avoid trying to work my way through biased news articles (on either side) in trying to figure out what's actually going on.
For Turkey:
Nothing to adopt: Institutions, other issues.
No major difficulties expected: Enterprise & industrial policy, science & research, customs union, external relations, financial & budgetary provisions
Further efforts needed: Free movement of goods, free movement of capital, intellectual property law, information society & media, basic coolness, education & culture, consumer & health protection, foreign security & defense policy, financial control.
Considerable efforts needed: company law, financial services, transport policy, energy, taxation, economic & monetary policy, statistics, social policy & employment, trans-european networks, Regional Policy & Coordination of Structural Instruments, judiciary & fundamental rights, justice freedom & security.
Very hard to adopt: freedom of movement for workers, Right of Establishment & Freedom to provide Services, competition policy, agricultural & rural development, Food safety, Veterinary & Phytosanitary Policy, fisheries.
Current situation totally incompatible with EU acquis: public procurement, environment. |
This is a fair assessment of the situation in Turkey. In a number of the areas where there is still difficulty, I have seen considerable improvement over the time I spent in the country. They are moving in the right direction, but it will still take more time to complete the process.
The Alevis are very interesting. A number of my best friends there are Alevis. A review of the article and the map accompanying it on the distribution of Alevis geographically in Turkey should make some people reconsider the idea that the hinterlands of Turkey are monolithically conservative Islamicist areas. Alevis are a substantial minority throughout the areas East of Ankara, and a trip through these areas is an eye-opening experience in regard to the interplay of the modern and the traditional and the part religion plays in these communities.
Relations between the Alevis and the Sunni majority have not always been smooth, as the article makes clear. To strict Sunnis, the Alevis are anathema, worse than polytheists because they are pretending to be Muslim I've heard said. However, interestingly, the current government of Turkey, which comes out of a Sunni Islamicist tradition, has begun to respond to some Alevi demands for recognition, including revising the school curriculum for religious education to include acknowledgement of different sects of Islam.
Turkey is a complex country (show me one that isn't), certainly not without its faults. I find it frustrating, though, that much of the debate over it in the rest of Europe is taking place through stereotypes and not through real exploration of the country itself. Hopefully this thread will encourage some deeper thinking on the topic for members of this board. |
Yeah, that's probably the best thing I discovered the day before yesterday. I haven't yet found out just what it is the Alevis believe (because I haven't taken the time yet) but it seems to be somewhat related to Sufism which is my favourite branch of Islam, if it can even be called that.
| Quote: |
| When compared to the general Sunni population, on average, they have significantly higher rates of literacy, higher education, and female employment and a lower fertility rate. |
insan Hakta Hak insanda.
I didn't know there were so many of them though. I was thinking 'tiny minority' at first but it turns out there are somewhere around 20 million in Turkey alone. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Woland
Joined: 10 May 2006
Location: Seoul
|
| Posted: Tue May 23, 2006 4:04 am Post subject: |
|
|
| mithridates wrote: |
Yeah, that's probably the best thing I discovered the day before yesterday. I haven't yet found out just what it is the Alevis believe (because I haven't taken the time yet) but it seems to be somewhat related to Sufism which is my favourite branch of Islam, if it can even be called that. |
If you're interested in finding out more, try this website:
http://www.alevism.net/
It appears to have been written by a Turkish Alevi. The English is choppy, but it looks like a thorough overview of the faith from the perspective of a hetergogenous believer. I know a number of Alevis who would adhere more closely to the Shi'ite tradition in Alevism, but all would agree that they are not Shi'ites.
If you want to get a feel for Alevism, you need to go to the village of Hacibektas, where the tomb of Haci Bektas Veli, the founder of the Bektasi dervish order, is the most important Alevi shrine in Turkey (and probably the world). It says something about the herterogenous nature of Alevism to see various depictions of Hussein on sale outisde the tomb of this Sufi saint. Inside, you take your shoes off, as in any turbe, but women enter with heads uncovered. And there is the usual wailing. It is the one place where Alevism is on open public display.
The Alevis are tolerant people, as their heterogenous nature shows. But they are somewhat coy about public acknowledgement of their faith. There remains some fear of repression by Sunnis, which explains why they consistently vote secularist and leftist. Even in the secular state, they have been classified as Muslims and treated as such by the Ministry of Reiligious Affairs. This has included having their children educated in Sunni traditions in the schools, something that has only just changed, and being required to build mosques, which they don't use, in their villages because every Muslim village should have one. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
|
|
FAQ
Search
Memberlist
Usergroups
Register
Profile
Log in to check your private messages
Log in
